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After a first day of bombardment with ten-minute pitches and the ensuing inevitable debate over post-conference drinks, chair Vijay Vaitheeswaran had an interesting challenge to set the context for the second day's conversation. The dispute over wine and nibbles had been about how far design really can offer the solutions business leaders are 'casting about' for. Vijay's balanced answer, with his broad view as a long-term correspondent on the Economist, was that perhaps if designers can offer some fresher thinking than traditional business consultancy services, that's no bad thing.

As a lover of the Graduate, I liked his an analogy with the famous advice 'I've got one word for you Benjamin: Plastics!', suggesting perhaps now the old guard will be dictating to the young graduates 'design!'

But this idea is probably unpalatable to those who believe design is a profession and you need your 10 thousand hours of practice to qualify.

David Kester, CE of the Design Council, followed Vijay with his introductory remarks. Typically for Kester, not content to let the audience sit complacent, he posed a riddle - an intellectual challenge before 9am. Annoyingly I worked out the answer but couldn't manipulate the technology in time to text it in. Anyway the answer was 'oak', a reference to the lecture hall in which we are sitting, apparently made from one huge oak tree. He applauded the design of the room, indeed of King's Place, as the result of an obsession with getting it right.

He closed by reminding us of the respective meanings of design, innovation and creativity, as according to Design Council wisdom, which you can find here. Their dogmatic insistence on these definitions (laid down in the Treasury-commissioned Cox review) is vaguely irritating. But fine. Let's proceed with the day.

[Blogged live from The Economist's Big Rethink Conference]

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